After pouring over Italian recipes this week I was left with a serious craving for some Italian food and I had to make some hearty pasta so we could carb overload. I was inspired by this food blogger's post, taken from Giada's recipe for lamb ragu with mint. I made some changes to jazz it up, and improvised with the marinara, but it was still incredibly simple and incredibly delicious (you can refer to Giada's recipe for the more basic version). It goes down as one of my favorite pasta dishes I have made thus far, and my husband absolutely loved it. I had never cooked with ground lamb but I fell in love. The sauce is savory and a little sweet and wonderfully comforting. The recipe called for 1 1/2 lbs of meat but unfortunately Harris Teeter sells ground lamb in 1 lb packs. I wanted to make enough sauce to freeze some and to have some for leftovers, so I used 2 lbs of ground lamb. So the recipe I am leaving you with makes enough for at least 8-10 servings. For two people I'd recommend using only 1 lb of meat and cutting back on the sauce.2 lbs ground lamb
3 large cloves garlic, chopped
2 large shallots, chopped
2 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
1 red chili pepper, chopped (if you want the heat)
dash of cayenne
1 1/2 cup red wine
~ 6 cups marinara (I used 1 jar of store bought plus 1 large can crushed tomatoes)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup combination of basil and fresh mint leaves
dry Italian herbs, to taste
salt, pepper
rigatoni pasta
Heat olive oil in dutch oven, sautee shallots, then garlic. Add salt, pepper, toss in meat and allow to brown. Pour in wine and allow to reduce for a few minutes. Toss in cloves, bay leaf, red chili pepper, cayenne, and then marinara. Allow to simmer for at least 30 minutes, covered. I also added some herbs, rosemary and oregano, since the sauce I used was very simple and the crushed tomatoes needed flavor added to them (I did not feel like turning the tomatoes into a proper marinara first). After the sauce had developed its flavor, I added the cream and ricotta. I had cream lying around and I reduced the amount of required ricotta since I bought part skim and I wasn't too thrilled about that. I then added the mint and basil, cooked it for a few more minutes and then it was done. This makes a lot of sauce, so I removed over half of it into a tupperware, then boiled almost 1lb of rigatoni. When the pasta was super al dente, I tossed it into the sauce and finished cooking it for a few minutes in the sauce. Serve with freshly grated parmesan.
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